The Workshop to Review and Develop Educational Support Materials and the Whole School Model was held in Antalya on 20-22 January 2020 within the scope of the European Union - Council of Europe Joint Project on “Strengthening Democratic Culture in Basic Education”. The aim of the workshop is to evaluate the applicability of educational support materials and the Whole School Model, developed within the project, and to be implemented in 110 pilot schools. Among the participants were teachers from pre-school, primary school and middle school levels, members of the Material Development and Democratic School Culture Working Groups, academicians and representatives from the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) and the Council of Europe (CoE).
The Workshop started with an introduction about the Project and opening speech given by Dr Gülderen Özdemir, Head of R&D and Projects Department, DG for Basic Education, MoNE. Then, Senior Project Officer from the CoE, Ms Arzu Burcu Tuner made a presentation on Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, which is the basis of the project, and working areas of the Council of Europe’s Education Department.
In the first two days of the workshop, teachers reviewed the story books prepared for pre-school and primary school, and classroom activities prepared for primary and middle school level. The reports prepared as a result of group works were shared with all participants on the last day of the workshop.
Implementation of the Whole School Model to be finalized at the end of this process is planned to start in the second semester of 2019-2020 academic year; and education support materials will be implemented in 2020-2021 academic year in 110 pilot schools in provinces, Adana, Aydın, Burdur, Çanakkale, Iğdır, Kars, Muğla, Sinop, Sivas and Yozgat.
